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Date: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday
Sept. 19-21, 2014
Location:
Crowne Plaza Hotel
Convention Center
5700 28th ST SE
Grand Rapids, MI 49546
Slot times:
Friday
Doors Open: 8:00am
Slot 1: 8:00am - 12:30pm
Slot 2: 1:00pm - 5:30pm
Slot 3: 6:30pm - 11:00pm
Doors Close: 11:00pm
Saturday
Doors Open: 8:00am
Slot 4: 8:00am - 12:30pm
Slot 5: 1:00pm - 5:30pm
Slot 6: 6:30pm - 11:00pm
Doors Close: 11:00pm
Sunday
Doors Open: 8:00am
Slot 7: 8:00am - 12:00pm
Slot 8: 12:00pm - 4:00pm
Doors Close: 4:00pm
Player Cost:
All weekend: $25
Fri: $17
Sat: $17
Sun: $10
website: http://www.grand-con.com
We will be offering nearly 40 tables worth of Pathfinder Society selections over the weekend. Tickets can be purchased for the event on the website through MSTB gaming.
website for the hotel: http://www.crowneplaza.com/hotels/us/en/grand-rapids/grrcp/hoteldetail?qAdl t=1&qBrs=6c.hi.ex.rs.ic.cp.in.sb.cw.cv&qChld=0&qFRA=1&qGRM= 0&qPSt=0&qRRSrt=rt&qRef=df&qRms=1&qRpn=1&qRpp=10&am p;qSHp=1&qSmP=3&qSrt=sBR&qWch=0&srb_u=1&icdv=99504425&a mp;siclientid=1863&icdv=99504425
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Post-Convention Report ( a little late)
All boons and prize support arrived in plenty of time. We had enough Pathfinder novels that we could award one book to a single dice-off winner at each table. In addition, for each table we allowed a dice off, with the high roller getting either a boon or one of the books/flipmats provided by Paizo. Our system was to give out boons on rolls of 1-15, and physical prizes on 16-20. Everyone who GM’d at least once got a GM boon, and GM boon was also awarded to an HQ volunteer who manned our HQ all weekend. In addition, we arranged for commemorative dice to be made for our event, and every players in every slot got a die as a souvenir — if they played all weekend, they came away with 8 dice, which is a decent sized fireball.
This was the second year of Grand-Con, and it was at a different venue from last year, i.e. the convention center at a local Crowne Plaza Hotel vs the convention center at Calvin College. I decided to be conservative and schedule around the same number of tables as last year, and have back-up GMs ready at HQ in each slot to field pick-up tables if demand required. Thus we had 36 tables scheduled (some of which were 2-slot events), which is around the same number as last year.
We had problems with our hosts (MSTB games, the hotel representatives, and the local organizers of the overall convention). We had requested round tables capable of seating at least 6 players for our games. Instead we were given rows of trestle tables, all joined up like you’d find at an Oktoberfest tent. We were not given a HQ table. We were put into a room with all the other RPG events at the convention, and so during busy slots (which was most of the day Saturday and Sunday) the decibel level was such that people not adjacent to the GMs could barely hear what was happening. When we approached the convention HQ with our grievances, they generally deflected responsibility to one of the other three organizing forces in such a way that no one was ever responsible and no one could ever do anything. Thus we had to cannibalize one of our gaming tables for an HQ spot, and steal tables not assigned to us that were unoccupied to accommodate our scheduled games, which was not ideal. In addition, we ran the 6-00 Legacy of the Stonelords interactive special, and managed to find our own digital projector. However, even though the hotel had screens, they wouldn’t let us use it unless (A) we paid $60 to use it for that slot, (B) moved two of our tables a couple of feet, which the convention organizers wouldn’t allow us to do. We tried projecting onto the wall, but this involved setting our projector on a table that wasn’t one of ours, and it got occupied by gamers an hour into the slot, so we had to do without the interactive map.
I’ve attended many MSTB conventions in the past, and in general they do their part very well. It seemed to me that they were simply not given an adequately-sized space to accommodate all the events and vendors and guests that they were loaded with. I’ve been given to understand that the convention will be held at a different venue yet again next year. I also overheard that they had something like 2000 people come though that weekend, for all the activities.
Anyway, back to PFS. Of our 36 tables, 30 of which went off. 3 of the tables that didn’t happen were in the first 2 slots on Friday, when overall attendance was fairly sparse, and 3 of the tables that didn’t happen were due to an Eyes of the Ten cycle that was scrubbed — 4 of the 5 players who signed up didn’t have 12th level characters and thought they could just play pregens, we rescheduled the first slot of the cycle with a different low level scenario, and the remaining tables we didn’t replace since we had converted one of our game tables to an HQ and we physically had no room to offer a replacement table in those slots. On Saturday and Sunday our other tables were fairly full, and on Sunday especially were were told by MSTB HQ that we could offer twice as many tables and sell them all out. But having no place to actually physically play such games, even though we had back-up GMs available, we couldn’t offer any more events.
Here’s the table breakdown by slot:
Friday
Slot 1: 3/4 tables, 15 players
Slot 2: 3/5 tables (one a carry-over from slot 1), 16 players
Slot 3: 5/5 tables, 24 players
Saturday
Slot 4: 4/4 tables, 16 players
Slot 5: 4/5 tables. 24 players
Slot 6: 4/5 tables, 21 players
Sunday
Slot 7: 4/5 tables, 20 players
Slot 8: 4/5 tables, 22 players
By our count we had 62 unique players sit at our tables over the 3 days. 23 of those players were brand new to PFS and were given PFS numbers for the first time.
The feedback we got from players was almost universally positive, even from tables where players died. Our only complaints were in regards to the noise in the room, which of course was beyond our control. Our focus was on late season 5, early season 6 scenarios, and we made sure to offer at least half our tables as level 1-5. Everything went smoothly with our mustering and at HQ, and we had all our tables reported to the Paizo site by the end of the day Sunday.
Looking forward to next year, we will definitely be offering more content on Saturday and Sunday, probably 5 tables per slot on Friday, and 7-8 tables per slot on Saturday and Sunday. Because of all the walk-in/beginner players we encounter at this convention, we’ll continue to focus on low level scenarios, We Be Goblins, Silverhex, etc., with at least one special and some elite events for veteran players feathered into all the slots.